There are in current use a variety of weatherstrip assemblies, parts of which have been fabricated from extruded plastics or rubbers, and/or which comprise woven substrates or backings adhered by means for various plastic adhesive coating compositions.
Such bonding of the pile to the backing may be accomplished in the presence of an electrostatic field to orient the upstanding pile or by means of sonic bonding. An example of such conventional pile weatherstripping includes woven pile which vertically projects from a woven backing to which the pile is bonded by means of conventionally used plastic adhesive compositions such as polyester or vinyl polymer resins. Another conventionally known type of weatherstripping includes one or more vertically projecting straight fins usually in combination with vertically projecting woven pile, all of which are adhered to a plastic backing by means of adhesives, used alone, or in combination with some type of autogenous bonding, such as sonic bonding.
Manufacture of such conventionally known weatherstrip assemblies require the practice of several complex and costly operations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,266,190 to Jackson discloses a weatherstrip construction particularly useful in sealing small clearance openings associated with aluminum window and door closure elements. This weatherstrip assembly includes a woven cloth backing from which a plurality of parallel cut or uncut pile members project, the base of the pile members being bonded or otherwise secured to the upper surface of said backing and being confined by a pair of shields or baffles. Also see the Lind U.S. Pat. No. 3,923,576.
The U.S. patent to Kunkel, U.S. Pat. No. 2,739,359, on the other hand, discloses an all plastic, elastic weatherstrip assembly comprising a substrate and a few relatively thick elastic rubbery, upwardly projecting, parallel straight ribs, of varying height, which deform to seal off closure openings associated with the cooperation of opposite panels of glass swinging doors.
The U.S. patent to Yackiw, U.S. Pat. No. 4,242,392 discloses a pile-type weatherstrip including two pile sections separated by a straight vertically projecting fin or barrier strip which may be formed of fabric or synthetic material such as polypropylene. Other weatherstrip constructions are known, similar to the Yackiw construction, which comprise a sonically welded pile with a center row of overlapping fins.
The patent literature also shows a number of profiled gasket materials. For example, the Edwards U.S. Pat. No. 2,280,389 discloses a window and frame construction including a gasket strip (FIG. 3) provide with resilient deformable vertically projecting rib members adapted to compress and flex to seal a clearance opening between the closure member and the frame associated therewith. Also see the Murphy U.S. Pat. No. 2,188,815.
The prior weatherstrip materials suffer from numerous defects. Those embodying pile fabrics, either bonded or woven, which by far constitute the majority of weatherstrip materials in use today, suffer from being unduly costly to produce, as the pile fabric and the backing are separately formed, and must then be bonded, usually either by adhesive-electrostatic bonding or by sonic bonding. These all require several complex operations to produce. Rib-type weatherstripping material of the general type shown by Kunkel, which are no longer in common usage, have the tendency of wearing out quickly and losing their insulating capability.